For those of you not familiar with this fascinating area of numismatics, patterns are prototypes for coins that, for the most part, were never approved for circulation. Most patterns are very rare, some unique, and others unknown outside of museums.

The United States Mint produced well over a thousand different patterns, as well as many die trial and experimental pieces. Despite the great rarity of many of these individual items, the great variety makes the series surprisingly collectible.

There are relatively few collectors specializing in United States pattern coinage. Most of these collectors target specific areas. For example, there are collectors who specialize in Indian Cent patterns, others collecting Morgan dollar patterns, and so on.

In addition to these specialists, there are thousands of collectors of regular issue United States coins who try to buy a few patterns to complement their collections. Many of these historical coins have wide appeal and are surprisingly affordable. There are many collectors who, for example, would like to own an 1855 Flying Eagle large cent (J-167, about 500 pieces struck, value $1000-6000) to go with their collection of large cents or with their collection of Flying Eagle small cents.

Finally, a CALL TO ACTION ! There are many numismatic sites out there that do not list us on their links page. If you stumble across such a site, please ask them to list us! Click here for a short site description.